[Forwarding an announcement by Prasad Raghavendra --Boaz] FOCS 2015 will be held at Berkeley, California on October 18–20, 2015. Registrations are open at: http://focs15.simons.berkeley.edu/registration.html The deadline for early registration is Sept 25th. KARPfest80 On Saturday October 17, the day immediately before FOCS 2015, the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing will host a celebration … Continue reading FOCS 2015 and KARPFest80
Outreach on Fairness, Privacy and Data Analysis
A lovely interview with Cynthia Dwork in the New York Times on bias in computations. In particular, discussing our work (joint with Moritz Hardt, Toni Pitassi and Rich Zemel) on Fairness through Awareness. Our Science article, The reusable holdout: Preserving validity in adaptive data analysis (joint with Cynthia Dwork, Vitaly Feldman, Moritz Hardt, Toniann Pitassi and Aaron … Continue reading Outreach on Fairness, Privacy and Data Analysis
Sanjeev Arora on rethinking the graduate algorithms course
[Below is a guest post from Sanjeev Arora on his redesign of the traditional graduate algorithms course to be a better match for today's students. --Boaz] For the last two years I have tried new ideas in teaching algorithms at the graduate level. The course is directed at first year CS grads, but is also taken by grads … Continue reading Sanjeev Arora on rethinking the graduate algorithms course
Joining the new Harvard
After five fun and stimulating years in the wonderful Microsoft Research New England, I have decided to move on. I will be joining Harvard University as a professor of Computer Science in spring 2016. Moreover, I am thrilled to say that Madhu Sudan will also be joining Harvard. Harvard's Computer Science is on a growth streak and so … Continue reading Joining the new Harvard
Indistinguishability Obfuscation and Multi-linear Maps: A Brave New World – Guest Post by Ran Canetti
A bunch of us hapless cryptographers got the following boilerplate comment from the FOCS'15 PC: "Overall, submissions related to multi-linear maps and indistinguishability obfuscation were held to a somewhat higher standard. The PC expressed some concern with the recent flurry of activities pertaining to multi-linear maps and indistinguishability obfuscation, given how little we understand and … Continue reading Indistinguishability Obfuscation and Multi-linear Maps: A Brave New World – Guest Post by Ran Canetti
Popularizing TOC
It is hard to overestimate the impact of Popular Science books such as “A Brief History of Time” and “Chaos: Making a New Science” on Scientific Research. The indirect impact of popularizing Science and Scientific Education often surpass the direct contribution that most scientists can hope to achieve in their life time. For this reason, … Continue reading Popularizing TOC
Doing a 180 and still spinning
I taught my first class last quarter and it was an enjoyable and eye-opening experience at many levels. First some background. The class was undergraduate algorithms or as popularly known in UCLA - CS180. There were 129 students (kind of like jumping into the deep end to test the waters). Like most other CS curricula, it is a … Continue reading Doing a 180 and still spinning
Historical Papers in Cryptography: Umesh Vazirani on Quantum and Post-Quantum Cryptography
The cryptography semester at the Simons Institute is well on its way. Last week we had a fascinating workshop on securing computation: thanks to Hugo Krawczyk and Amit Sahai for organizing. You can find the program and video links here (covering, among many other topics, everything you always wanted to know about obfuscation but were afraid … Continue reading Historical Papers in Cryptography: Umesh Vazirani on Quantum and Post-Quantum Cryptography
Do It Yourself Theoryfestival Design – Guest Post By Sanjeev Arora
Sanjeev suggesting an interesting exercise, in our series on the design of a Theory Festival as part of STOC 2017: --------------- Throughout our conference design process we often observe big shifts in people’s opinions as they engage with the issues and the mathematical constraints. So if you have strong opinions about the theory festival, I … Continue reading Do It Yourself Theoryfestival Design – Guest Post By Sanjeev Arora
More fun at the theory festival: plenary sessions – guest post by Sanjeev Arora
Towards the business meeting, another personal post in our series (this one by Sanjeev Arora): -------------- An important part of the plan for theory festival ---which everybody involved agrees upon---is the need for a substantial plenary component. The festival organizing committee would select the plenary program based upon inputs from various sources. Plenary sessions will include about … Continue reading More fun at the theory festival: plenary sessions – guest post by Sanjeev Arora
Windows On Theory 